Trimming the Tree

Last night we decorated our Christmas tree. That is always a fun time. Our tree is little artificial tree we bought around 7 years ago. My husband had always disliked artificial trees, but seven years ago we were living in Hawaii and the real trees you bought from the tree lots were quite old by the time they made it to Hawaii. It was a bit of a fire hazard. I also didn't like cleaning those needles constantly.
So, we have our 6 foot artificial tree and it has served us well.

I always do the lights first. The past few years we've had multicolored lights on the tree, but this year, it's blue. After I finished the lights, I pulled out the decorations and let the kids go at it.

We have 6 small nutcracker ornaments. For some reason, my kids love those. So, last night when they put the nutcrackers on the tree, they grouped them all together on one branch. That way the nutcrackers can chat with each other. It's funny to see all those ornaments clumped together like that in the middle of the tree. Eventually, I'll find a few dinosaurs surrounding the nutcrackers in the tree, thanks to my oldest son. He likes to pretend that the dinosaurs attack the nutcrackers. Apparently the nutcrackers have had one dino-encounter casualty, one of them is missing his legs.

We have a Miss Piggy ornament and a Kermit the Frog ornament. To Piggy's delight and Kermit's dismay, they are always placed near each other on the tree.

There are many wooden ornaments on the tree that I painted myself my first Christmas after getting married. Those get hung up. I have no artistic talent, even when I'm painting in the lines.

There are a few ornaments from my childhood. I like seeing them. One is a cross stitch I did when I was seven. It is my favorite. I remember making that ornament. It was my first cross stitch project and it turned me onto a life long love of cross stitching.

The disco balls. Early in our marriage, Hubby and I discovered we loved to dance to disco music! Several years ago we found disco ball ornaments. We bought a bunch and I love seeing those on the tree. Some day I want to do a tree with nothing but blue lights and disco balls. That would be awesome.

So, now, our tree is up. This morning, Peanut went to explore the tree. We made sure to place a few soft and non-breakable ornaments down low that she could play with them. Instead, she tried to pull herself up and she ended up pulling the entire tree down on top of herself. I laughed, but she was pretty upset. Ornaments were strewn all over the floor. Thank goodness nothing is breakable on our tree. She hasn't gone near it since. I hope she has learned her lesson.